“As much as you love them, dreams are just dreams,” (Lee 26).
Unremembered and unknown to us when we awaken lies a store in our subconscious: The Dallergut Dream Department Store. Inside customers find a variety of options from dreams from childhood to living the life of another person, nightmares, mysterious dreams, dreams that stick and are hard to shake. Penny has just started working at the Dallergut Dream Department Store and is eager to learn what dreams are meant for which person and meet the mysterious dream makers who create the dreams so widely sought after.
While The Dallergut Dream Department Store has an intriguing concept it just wasn’t for me. This may be a translation problem, but the book read very much like a middle grade novel. This isn’t an insult to middle grade novel, only that since the book is marketed as adult I expect a bit more oomph in terms of word choices. As it was the characters felt flat, the book speedy, and I really didn’t care all that much about who the dream makers were or Penny’s growing initiative as she worked at the store. There are also two epilogues that act to provide some sort of backstory to two characters and tie up one plot-point, but they really aren’t all that necessary to the story as a whole.
The last chapter had me crying though, so it gets points for that.
I don’t read a lot of cozy, low-stakes fiction so this was going to be a stretch for me to like from the start, but I know this will appeal to a certain type of reader. In that case, I hope The Dallergut Dream Department Store is the answer to your book dreams!
Publisher: Hanover Square Press
Pages: 284 pages (ARC OLA)
Source: Owned
Genre: Fiction, Fantasy, Magical Realism
My Rating: ⛤⛤⛤
Summary:
In a mysterious town that lies hidden in our collective subconscious, there’s a quaint little store where all kinds of dreams are sold …
Day and night, visitors both human and animal from all over the world shuffle in sleepily in their pyjamas, lining up to purchase their latest adventure. Each floor in the department store sells a special kind of dream, including nostalgic dreams about your childhood, trips you’ve taken, and delicious food you’ve eaten, as well as nightmares and more mysterious dreams.
In Dallergut Dream Department Store we meet Penny an enthusiastic new hire; Dallergut, the flamboyant owner of the department store; Agnap Coco, producer of special dreams; Vigo Myers, an employee in the mystery department as well as a cast of curious, funny and strange clientele who regularly visit the store. When one of the most coveted and expensive dreams gets stolen during Penny’s first week, we follow along with her as she tries to uncover the workings of this wonderfully whimsical world.
Sarah O'Connor 